Italy: Non abbastanza monete nella fontana…

by Sally Steele

La Dolce Vita, and the Trevi Fountain

Non abbastanza monete nella fontana…not enough coins in the fountain!

Italy has the highest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the world, currently 75. In a country which bleeds culture, history is an irreplaceable natural resource. We have seen first-hand that Italy is crumbling. To the rescue come some legendary names in fashion helping to revitalize, preserve and embrace Italian landmarks. Unfortunately, the U.S. has only 22 sites on the list, and 12 tentative sites.

“It’s supposed to be the gold standard for conservation. But is Unesco’s World Heritage project harming the very places it seeks to protect?”

“Since its inception, 37 years ago, Unesco World Heritage has become a global brand whose seal is slapped on the planet’s most precious places. The Taj Mahal is on the list, alongside the Pyramids of Giza and the Grand Canyon. These are the man-made and natural wonders considered to be of such outstanding value to humanity that their importance transcends borders, politics – and even economics. They are deemed deserving of the ultimate layer of protection – to be placed beyond the reach of polluters, developers, looters, bombers, and the ravages of time. The World Heritage seal is a guarantee of preservation.”

“At least that’s the perception. But now many within the conservation community are convinced Unesco is failing. They say the moribund organization is teetering on its once sound foundations as its principles and priorities crumble under the weight of bureaucracy and outside influence. The World Heritage emblem has come to represent a grandiose marketing tool – fodder for “things to see before you die” coffee-table books.”

“Not without controversy, UNESCO continues adding to the list, and donors filled with cultural/geographic patrimony do step forward. The history of benevolence with respect to the icons of Italy is interesting, not enough, continuing, albeit urgent. As if there wasn’t sufficient reason to buy Italian, history, quality, design, timlessness.”

Siracusa, Italy, photograph by Kim Steele

From the Associated Press October, 1999:

“Architectural restorations are leaving their mark on the Vatican – and so are corporate sponsors seeking the public’s support and good publicity. On Thursday, Pope John Paul II, in a flood-lit, nationally televised evening ceremony in St. Peter’s Square, lavished praise on a $5 million, 2 1/2-year scrubbing of St. Peter’s Basilica’s facade paid for by Italy’s state energy company, ENI. Earlier in the day, ENI’s chief executive, Vittorio Mincato, unveiled a plaque, placed on the roof of the basilica behind the clock, to commemorate the sponsorship. Corporate sponsors are increasingly eager to help clean and restore artwork, church buildings and monuments in Italy blackened over the years by grime and soot. The Vatican embraced corporate sponsorship in a big way, starting with a Japanese television network’s (NHK) funding of the restoration of Michelangelo’s frescoed ceiling in the Sistine Chapel, a project which spanned the entire 1980s. Last year, a German appliance-maker paid for the cleaning of Bernini’s Colonnade cradling the square, where pilgrims’ exhaust-discharging tour buses sometimes park. Renzo Russo, founder of clothing company Diesel, is providing funds ($6.7 million) to restore and clean the oldest bridge spanning Venice’s Grand Canal, the Rialto. Fendi has pledged to restore five of Rome’s best-known fountains, beginning with the iconic 17th century Trevi fountain.”

Venice, Italy, photograph by Kim Steele

From CBS News, July 2011:

“Earlier this month Italy’s national patrimony association, Italia Nostra, sent up an emergency flare, calling on UNESCO to put Venice on its danger list to try to stop the rampant destruction. “You want a Venice without the lagoons, keep cutting our funding,” says Lidia Fersuoch, president of the Venetian Italia Nostra chapter. “We’ve got uncontrollable tourism … and the Grand Canal has become an aquatic superhighway for boats. Yet no one invests in any restoration or maintenance. At this rate, there will soon be nothing left.”

“Few people understand the power of branding as well as Diego Della Valle, head of the luxury-leather-goods company Tod’s, and his friend, Ferrari president Luca Cordero di Montezemolo. Acting like modern versions of the Renaissance Medicis, they are stepping in to save Italy’s heritage with cash donations, sponsorships, and the power of their social network. At La Scala in Milan on a recent summer afternoon, the sound of tapping hammers and buzzing chain saws echoed between the decaying walls with joyful fortissimo as Della Valle settled into a red-velvet chair in a mezzanine row. The construction noise—more than the faint hum from invisible wind instruments playing somewhere backstage—was music to his ears; the shoe magnate has given more than $7 million to the storied opera house—the largest donation in the theater’s 233-year history, and a gift that will keep the singers singing for a few seasons yet, despite a budget crunch that otherwise threatens Italy’s famed patrimony. “La Scala is easily one of the top 10 symbols of Italy’s cultural excellence,” Della Valle said. “That makes it vital to our global image. Closing it would send a message to the rest of the world that Italy doesn’t care.”

Tiber River, Rome, Italy, photograph by Kim Steele

From The Guardian, January 2013:

“Fendi throws coins in Rome’s crumbling Trevi Fountain. Fashion house gives over €2m to fund restoration of baroque masterpiece as austerity bites into Italian cultural patrimony. The urgency of the Trevi fountain project became clear last summer, when chunks of stone and plaster fell off its facade and emergency repairs costing €320,000 were carried out. The authorities then undertook a survey of the fountain. Alarmed by what it revealed, they launched an appeal to large companies and private individuals to fund “an act of social patronage”. As part of the Fendi makeover, the Trevi’s facade and statues will be cleaned and its basin given a fresh waterproofing.”

Amalfi Coast, Italy, photograph by Kim Steele

From CBS News, December 2013:

“After almost three years of debate and delay, restoration work on Rome’s ancient Colosseum has begun. Scaffolding began to obscures part of the immense structure in the heart of the Italian capital more than a month ago, but a ceremony this week marked the official start of work. Diego Della Valle, founder and chief executive of the Italian fashion and luxury design brand Tod’s, stumped up the cash to restore what is considered one of the world’s most iconic monuments, and a lasting symbol of Imperial Rome. He’s made 25 million euros ($33 million) available for the project to rejuvenate the structure, which is also known as the Flavian Amphitheatre — the largest in the world. Della Valle, who first announced his donation in 2010, lamented the years of delay at a news conference this week announcing the beginning of restoration work. Legal action brought by consumer associations and trade unions was largely behind the three-year wait.”

“Della Valle said he hoped the restoration work would be complete, as planned, within three years, and that it will show Italy is capable of maintaining its valuable heritage — something which must be safeguarded at all costs in a country where history and culture are such huge draws for the lucrative tourism sector.”

“Della Valle said many of Italy’s most iconic tourist attractions “are literally falling apart,” and said the rapport between public institutions and the private sector leaves much to be desired. He said investors are scared away from backing public projects by the sheer amount of government red tape involved, but warned the state could no longer be expected to maintain its immense cultural wealth without additional private funding.”

Paestum, Campania, Italy, photograph by Kim Steele

From blouinartinfo.com, June 2014:

“Gucci has become the latest in a string of Italian fashion companies chipping in to save their country’s masterpieces of art and archaeology. Using half of all proceeds from ticket sales to its Gucci Museo, the Florentine luxury brand will channel 340,000 euros toward funding the restoration — from ensuring the correct lighting to antipollution protection — of ten 16th-century tapestries in the Sala dei Duecento of the storied Palazzo Vecchio, Florence’s town hall, and allowing them to be displayed for public viewing on a quarterly rotating basis.”

“Elsewhere in Italy, Tod’s is supporting the restoration of the Colosseum in Rome; Fendi is supporting a four-year project to restore the Trevi Fountain and provide a facelift for the Complex of the Four Fountains; Renzo Rosso, president of OTB Group (which holds Maison Martin Margiela, Marni, Viktor & Rolf, and Diesel), is funding a makeover of Venice’s iconic Ponte di Rialto; while Brunello Cucinelli has restored the Etruscan Arch in Perugia, and the medieval village of Solomeo.”

“Prada is restoring the fortress in the Tuscan city of Arezzo to recover the antique Church of San Donato in Cremona, as well as Giorgio Vasari’s “Last Supper,” which was seriously damaged in a flood in 1966.”

Naples Harbor, Italy, photograph by Kim Steele

The World Heritage Convention: The most significant feature of the 1972 World Heritage Convention is that it links together in a single document the concepts of nature conservation and the preservation of cultural properties. The Convention recognizes the way in which people interact with nature, and the fundamental need to preserve the balance between the two. The idea of creating an international movement for protecting heritage emerged after World War I. The 1972 Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritagedeveloped from the merging of two separate movements: the first focusing on the preservation of cultural sites, and the other dealing with the conservation of nature.

Villa Adriana, Tivoli, Italy, photograph by Steve Winer

Villa Adriana, Tivoli, Italy, photograph by Steve Winer

World Heritage Sites in Italy:

Rock Drawings in Valcamonica

Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie with “The Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci

Historic Centre of Rome, the Properties of the Holy See in that City Enjoying Extraterritorial Rights and San Paolo Fuori le Mura

Historic Centre of Florence

Piazza del Duomo, Pisa

Venice and its Lagoon

Historic Centre of San Gimignano

The Sassi and the Park of the Rupestrian Churches of Matera

City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto

Crespi d’Adda

Ferrara, City of the Renaissance, and its Po Delta

Historic Centre of Naples

Historic Centre of Siena

Castel del Monte

Early Christian Monuments of Ravenna

Historic Centre of the City of Pienza

The Trulli of Alberobello

18th-Century Royal Palace at Caserta with the Park, the Aqueduct of Vanvitelli, and the San Leucio Complex

Archaeological Area of Agrigento

Archaeological Areas of Pompei, Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata

Botanical Garden (Orto Botanico), Padua

Cathedral, Torre Civica and Piazza Grande, Modena

Costiera Amalfitana

Portovenere, Cinque Terre, and the Islands (Palmaria, Tino and Tinetto)

Residences of the Royal House of Savoy

Su Nuraxi di Barumini

Villa Romana del Casale

Archaeological Area and the Patriarchal Basilica of Aquileia

Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park with the Archeological Sites of Paestum and Velia, and the Certosa di Padula

Historic Centre of Urbino

Villa Adriana (Tivoli)

Assisi, the Basilica of San Francesco and Other Franciscan Sites

City of Verona

Isole Eolie (Aeolian Islands)

Villa d’Este, Tivoli

Late Baroque Towns of the Val di Noto (South-Eastern Sicily)

Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy

Monte San Giorgio

Etruscan Necropolises of Cerveteri and Tarquinia

Val d’Orcia

Syracuse and the Rocky Necropolis of Pantalica

Genoa: Le Strade Nuove and the system of the Palazzi dei Rolli

Mantua and Sabbioneta

Rhaetian Railway in the Albula / Bernina Landscapes

The Dolomites

Longobards in Italy. Places of the Power (568-774 A.D.)

Prehistoric Pile dwellings around the Alps

Medici Villas and Gardens in Tuscany

Mount Etna

The Vineyard Landscape of Piedmont: Langhe-Roero and Monferrato

The Boulevardiers are in madly love with Italy. Having seen many and hoping to see all of the UNESCO World Heritage sites in Italy, we support doing anything & everything to preserve them. You can donate directly, here: UNESCO.

Robert Frank set the bar for street photography in the 1950's. His seminal book, The Americans, stands as a touchstone for all documentary photographers, recently republished by Steidl, free show touring to 50 universities.

This vehicle apeared in the film “Dick Smart, Agent 2007” starring Richard Wyler, Margaret Lee, Rosanna Tapados. For this movie, the Vespa 180 Super Sport was transformed by Piaggio and by the English factory Alpha Willis to race along the road, fly like a helicopter, sail and dive like a submarine.

Janis Joplin’s Psychedelic Porsche 356 Sells for $1.76 Million at RM Sotheby’s New York

8,000 yrs. old, the largest Neolithic structure settlement, is giant square of 101 raised mounds, larger than the Cheops Pyramids, seen from space

Italian fashion house Fendi has moved into its new headquarters at Rome's Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana – a building commissioned by dictator Benito Mussolini in 1943 that has been renovated by local architect Marco Costanzi

Friends and contemporaries: From left, John Irving; Gay Talese; Saul and Gayfryd Steinberg, the hosts of this cocktail party for the PEN writers’ group in 1985; Kurt Vonnegut; William Styron; and Norman Mailer. Credit photograph by Jill Krementz, all rights reserved

Francis Fleetwood in 1991, near a home in East Hampton, N.Y., one of over 200 he built in the area starting in 1980, including homes for Alec Baldwin, Lauren Bacall, and Calvin Klein, photograph by Michael Shavel

Picasso's Women of Algiers has become the most expensive painting to sell at auction, going for $160m (£102.6m) at Christie's in New York

Must See: new Salgado film, The Salt of the Earth, it's visionary, heartbreaking and uplifting, photograph by Sebastiao Salgado/Amazonas Images

Frei Otto wins prestigious Pritzker Architectural award for 2015. Blind, who just died before his award at 89, the German is renowned for his diaphanous roof canopies and other "inventive feats of engineering"

The photograph taken by William Eggleston for WSJ Magazine of some of his Leica and Canon cameras, blogs.wsj.com

From the book “Cotton Tenants: Three Families" by James Agee ~ photograph by Walker Evans

In front of ~ Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice Biennale 2013, June 1 through November

Memorial Day 2013, Presidio, San Francisco, photograph by Kim Steele

Flapper Girl: What was missing from Great Gatsby, runway.blogs.nytimes.com

Glass Jellyfish, by German glass artist Leopold Blaschka, 1822 - 1895

In Honor Of Ottavio Missoni, 1921 - 2013, and his kaleidoscope of colours, textile-blog.com

Iron Lady: Who knew Iron Man had a wife? nytimes.com

Painters hang from suspended wires on the Brooklyn Bridge October 7, 1914 -- 31 years after it first opened; @AP Photo/New York City Municipal Archives, Department of Bridges/Plant & Structures, Eugene de Salignac

Danae (pronounced De-NIGH-EE) and the Shower of Gold (1939), photograph by George Platt Lynes

PUBLISHER MUSING:

7, Adulthood Group IV by Hilma af Klint

On a recent trip to New York, as is my pattern, I combed over every major museum from Brooklyn to the Guggenheim and those in between, as well as many galleries. On the insistence of several artist friends, I spent the morning viewing Hilma af Klimt’s paintings at the Guggenheim.

I was enraptured with her turn of the last century’s work, precursing the know figures of Modernism-Kandinsky, Malevich and Mondrian. A relatively unknown (to the world, but not in her native Sweden) artist with a definite spiritual bent, complete with séances and mystical writings. But most importantly were the bold paintings of shapes and patterns that are very contemporary and defy definition. They are truly innovative and fresh; they remained with me for days afterward. I highly recommend the show. As Roberta Smith noted in the Times, “a rapturous exhibition.” The best show I saw. Until April 23rd.

ICE, photograph by Henry Wessel, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

As a shooter of film for forty years, it has been a struggle to grasp the impact of the digital age and the Internet on of the status of photography in our world. The act of shooting has become an indulgent, social event.

Henry Wessel, sadly recently deceased in California, was a profound photographer, mentor, professor and thinker on photography, especially on the American West.

“Pressing the shutter is saying yes to the world.’” One of his most poignant quotations which set me back; upon arriving at LAX, he commented on the light intensity, “it looked like you could lean against it.” He was honored by many museum exhibitions from Szarkowski’s at Moma, to Eastman House, to Cologne. He was instrumental in the photo program at the San Francisco Institute, joining its faculty in 1973.

Lee Friedlander called him the “Photo Buddha.” I could mention Walker Evens or Cartier Bresson as his inspiration, but he embarked further into the ordinary terrain of life. This plots a direct collusion with Instagram and Facebook imaging. He was concerned about the proliferation of pictures and it’s deterioration of the import of the photograph.

“People don’t pay much attention these days to the descriptive, expressive and suggestive facts found in a good still photograph.

“The process of photographing is a pleasure: eyes open, receptive, sensing, and at some point connecting. It’s thrilling to be outside your mind, your eyes far ahead of your thoughts.”

That’s picture taking.

I cannot help to be critically drawn to the narcissistic nature of people’s images – selfies, food, pets and fronting famous objects. Nothing to do with image making but all about themselves. Sadly that is our future.

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INTERESTING OPENINGS:

HANS HOFFMAN: The Nature of Abstraction

February 27, 2019 – July 21, 2019, at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, California

It’s impossible to imagine a history of American abstract art in the postwar era without Hofmann, who taught many budding New York painters of the time—including Helen Frankenthaler and Lee Krasner—in the ways of color theory and modernist styles. Hofmann’s work, with its juxtaposed swatches of opposing colors and uneven textures, is lesser known than that of his students, so this show will bring together nearly 70 works to spotlight how he translated European techniques for American audiences.

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“THE JEWELED ISLE: Art from Sri Lanka”

December 9, 2018 – June 23, 2019, at LACMA

The first comprehensive survey of Sri Lankan art organized by an American museum, The Jeweled Isle: Art from Sri Lanka presents some 240 works addressing nearly two millennia of Sri Lankan history. The image of a bejeweled isle, first invoked in Greco-Roman accounts of Sri Lanka’s precious gems, inspired numerous literary descriptions of the island’s wealth and tropical beauty. The Jeweled Isle includes precious decorative objects fashioned from gold, silver, and ivory, and 19th-century photographs documenting Sri Lanka’s extraordinary monuments, scenery, and flora. Several artworks convey the importance of sacred sites and relics in Sri Lankan Buddhist practice, while rare images of Hindu gods attest to the long and constant interaction between Sri Lanka and South India. Exquisite ivories, textiles, and furnishings further reflect nearly four centuries of European colonial presence in Sri Lanka and the dynamic interaction between local and foreign visual traditions. Featuring LACMA’s rarely displayed collection of Sri Lankan art—one of the finest and most extensive in the U.S.—the exhibition presents a timely exploration and celebration of a geographically complex, ethnically diverse, and multicultural South Asian hub.

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SEBASTIO SALGADO: Genesis

November 16, 2018 – June 23, 2019, at Museum für Gestaltung Zürich

Glaciers, densely populated by seals, endless Sahara dunes or mist-covered mountains in the Amazon rainforest: Sebastião Salgado depicts the earth as a creation of overwhelming beauty and thus sharpens our awareness of its preciousness. On over 30 journeys to all corners of the world, the French-Brazilian has created a photographic essay that simultaneously documents the majesty and the vulnerability of our environment. Salgado has sailed across oceans, scaled mountains, and crossed deserts. He has observed animals and met indigenous peoples in his endeavor to capture their environment and culture. The exhibition is a dramatic manifesto that not only touches visitors with its opulent black-and-white photographs, but also raises open questions about how we deal with the planet.

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RAUSCHENBERG: The 1/4 Mile

October 28, 2018 – June 9, 2019, at LACMA

One of the most pioneering artists of the last century, Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) produced a diverse body of work characterized by experimentation, the use of varied mediums and methods, and cross-cultural exchange. Rauschenberg’s monumental The 1/4 Mile or 2 Furlong Piece (1981–98) exemplifies these tenets of his artistic practice. Created over 17 years, the work is composed of 190 panels that, combined, measure approximately a quarter mile in length. An eclectic array of materials comprise the piece: textiles, mass media images, and photographs by the artist intermingle with bold passages of paint, while everyday objects such as chairs, cardboard boxes, and traffic lights add sculptural depth. Rauschenberg incorporated materials and photographs from the U.S., Asia, Europe, Latin America, and Northern Africa, including audio of ambient street sounds recorded during his travels.

The 1/4 Mile reveals the broad scope of Rauschenberg’s practice through the multitude of mediums and techniques employed, and serves as a self-contained retrospective of his oeuvre. This presentation is the first time The 1/4 Mile or 2 Furlong Piece will be exhibited in its entirety.

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FRIDA KHALO: Appearances Can Be Deceiving

February 8, 2019 – May 12, 2019, at Brooklyn Museum. NY

In 2014, curator Julie Rodrigues Widholm told ARTnews that Kahlo has “been so overshadowed by her celebrity that her work has become lost.” Could this be the exhibition that finally saves the Mexican Surrealist painter from her own celebrity? For what is being billed as the largest Kahlo show in America in a decade, the Brooklyn Museum will home in on how the artist carefully crafted her identity. The show will include her clothes, personal possessions, and examples of contemporaneous films and propaganda, as well as works from the museum’s Mesoamerican holdings. If the show’s title is any proof, it will shed light on never-before-seen aspects of Kahlo, whose work frequently dealt with the complexities of being a female artist in the first half of the 20th century.

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THE C C Land EXHIBITION: Pierre Bonnard. The Colour Of Memory

January 23 – May 6, 2019, at TATE Modern, London

This is the first major exhibition of Pierre Bonnard’s work in the UK since the much-loved show at Tate 20 years ago. It will allow new generations to discover Bonnard’s unconventional use of colour, while surprising those who think they already know him.

Born 1867, Bonnard was, with Henri Matisse, one of the greatest colourists of the early 20th century. He preferred to work from memory, imaginatively capturing the spirit of a moment and expressing it through his unique handling of colour and innovative sense of composition.

The exhibition concentrates on Bonnard’s work from 1912, when colour became a dominant concern, until his death in 1947. It presents landscapes and intimate domestic scenes which capture moments in time – where someone has just left the room, a meal has just finished, a moment lost in the view from the window, or a stolen look at a partner.

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VICTOR VASARELY: The Sharing of Form

February 6, 2019 – May 6, 2019, at Centre Pompidou, Paris

While the name Vasarely evokes colourful images playing with optic illusion, the whole scope and logic of this artist’s work remains little known more than twenty years after his death. The last major Parisian exhibition devoted to the artist dates back to 1963 at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. This new retrospective at the Centre Pompidou explores his work from all its facets, rather than focusing only on the aspects which would conform to the popular concept of Great Art. Through an outstanding collection of nearly eighty paintings, an architectural integration and a wide selection of multiples, discover a work which rose, like the DS or Pierre Paulin’s armchairs, to the status of the great technical and cultural mythologies of its time.
This exhibition reveals Vasarely’s ‘software’, which holds a dual dimension. As the heir of the historical avant-gardists of the early half of the 20th century, in particular Bauhaus, Victor Vasarely launched into a radical undertaking to secularise art. In other words, he was committed to defining ways of designing and producing which would enable widespread social distribution of art. At the same time, and this is the other major aspect of his work, Vasarely developed forms which caught the eye to a further degree than abstract painting in general and thus marked history as the inventor of kinetic art.

Vasarely studied in Budapest alongside the historical avant-gardists. His master, Sandor Bortnyik, was one of the major figures of Hungarian modernism. The first section of the exhibition reveals a Vasarely adapting the language of modernism to advertising and laying the foundations, in the 1930s and through his advertising works and various studies, of his creations to come. The Zèbres series is a striking precedent to the optical-kinetic forms which were to emerge two decades later.

At the dawn of the 1960s, Vasarely opened the way for what he called the ‘plastic alphabet’, consisting of a lexicon of six simple geometric forms embedded in squares of pure colour, the ‘plastic units’. Reviving one of the founding dreams of abstraction, his ambition was to create a visual language of universal reach and thus offer global society the means to generate a new ‘planetary folklore’. The set of shapes and colours offered a practically infinite number of combinations with multiple applications. Vasarely mastered their control through permutation and programming methods which reflected his interest in cybernetics and lent his paintings a foretaste of the digitalisation to come. In the second half of the 1960s, the pure hues of the ‘plastic alphabet’ were enriched with intermediate values which introduced colour gradients and chiaroscuro into the mosaic of paintings and formed the basis of some of the artist’s most emblematic works.

Cosmic dreams, between science and fiction, were the subject of Vasarely's last explorations in form. It was a radiant, airy and multi-dimensional cosmos which inspired the major series of the 1960s and 1970s. Their titles bear witness to this, with references to ‘signals from other worlds’, to ‘meta-galaxies’ or the ‘sound of quasars’ and the ‘beat of pulsars’. In 1982, the French astronaut Jean-Loup Chrétien even took a series of five prints by the artist on board the Soviet space station Salyut 7, thus achieving the interstellar ambition of Vasarely’s work. This was the ultimate way to link the two major focus points of his work: space exploration, or the positivity of science in its most exemplary expression, and his love of distortions, geometric and optical eccentricities which abound in the world of science fiction.

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THE ESSENTIAL DUCHAMP

December 22, 2018 – April 7, 2019, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul

The exhibition will offer a chronological account of Duchamp’s life and art. The first section explores the period from 1902 through 1912, when he experimented with different avant-garde styles ranging from Impressionism to Symbolism and Fauvism. It concludes with his highly original engagement with Cubism and his life-changing decision at the age of twenty-five to abandon the painter’s craft and seek new ways of working.

The second section examines the crucial interval between 1912 and 1917, when Duchamp pushed past the boundaries of painting as conventionally understood. It was during these years that he generated the ideas for his magnum opus, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (also known as The Large Glass) (1915-23), and then embarked upon its construction after moving to New York. At the same time, Duchamp also created the first of his so-called readymades. Functional objects, such as his infamous sculpture Fountain (1917), were divorced from their utilitarian purpose and designated—as opposed to made—by Duchamp as works of art.

The third section follows Duchamp in Paris during the decades of the 1920s and 1930s, then back to New York as an émigré during World War II. Early in this period, he resolved to shift his vocation from art to chess, and went on to pursue chess with the commitment of a professional. At the same time, Duchamp invented a female persona named Rrose Sélavy and used this identity to pursue new projects.

The last section explores the remaining decades of his life when Duchamp achieved legendary status in the art world. It reflects upon themes that had long preoccupied Duchamp, including the erotic as a doctrine, and the aesthetics of realism and illusion. The exhibition concludes with materials illuminating the production of his final work, a three-dimensional construction built around a life-sized mannequin of a female nude, Étant donnés. He created it in near-total secrecy in his New York studio between 1946 and 1966.

Matthew Affron, the Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art and curator of this exhibition, from the show's organizing museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, stated: “Duchamp once slyly remarked that the Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2) had in some ways overtaken his story, leaving him ‘only a shadowy figure behind the reality of that painting.’ In fact, Duchamp preferred to glide in relative silence through the artistic avant-garde, even as he profoundly changed the way in which we think about the creation and interpretation of art. His persona was deliberately cloaked in an aura of mystery.”

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ANDY WARHOL: From A to B and Back Again

Nov 12, 2018 – Mar 31, 2019, at Whitney Museum of American Art

Few American artists are as ever-present and instantly recognizable as Andy Warhol (1928–1987). Through his carefully cultivated persona and willingness to experiment with non-traditional art-making techniques, Warhol understood the growing power of images in contemporary life and helped to expand the role of the artist in society. This exhibition—the first Warhol retrospective organized in the U.S. since 1989—reconsiders the work of one of the most inventive, influential, and important American artists. Building on a wealth of new materials, research and scholarship that has emerged since the artist’s untimely death in 1987, this exhibition reveals new complexities about the Warhol we think we know, and introduces a Warhol for the 21st century.

The exhibition positions Warhol's career as a continuum, demonstrating that he didn't slow down after surviving the assassination attempt that nearly took his life in 1968, but entered into a period of intense experimentation. The show illuminates the breadth, depth, and interconnectedness of the artist’s production: from his beginnings as a commercial illustrator in the 1950s, to his iconic Pop masterpieces of the early 1960s, to the experimental work in film and other mediums from the 1960s and 70s, to his innovative use of readymade abstraction and the painterly sublime in the 1980s. His repetitions, distortions, camouflaging, incongruous color, and recycling of his own imagery challenge our faith in images and the value of cultural icons, anticipating the profound effects and issues of the current digital age.

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JEWELRY: The Body Transformed

November 12, 2018 – February 24, 2019, at
The Met

What is jewelry? Why do we wear it? What meanings does it carry? Traversing time and space, this exhibition explores how jewelry acts upon and activates the body it adorns. This global conversation about one of the most personal and universal of art forms brings together some 230 objects drawn almost exclusively from The Met collection. A dazzling array of headdresses and ear ornaments, brooches and belts, necklaces and rings will be shown along with sculptures, paintings, prints, and photographs that will enrich and amplify the many stories of transformation that jewelry tells.

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CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI: Sculpture

July 22, 2018 – February 24, 2019, at MoMA, NY

Poet Ezra Pound spoke of artist Constantin Brancusi's work as providing “the master keys to the world of form.” Over a career that spanned half a century, Brancusi's innovations transformed sculpture as it had been known, and influenced generations of artists to come. After moving to Paris in 1904 from his native Romania, Brancusi affected the appearance of a Romanian peasant—a long beard, work shirt, and sandals—while embedding himself in avant-garde art circles. He soon began pushing modernist sculpture to the threshold of abstraction, developing a new, simplified vocabulary of graceful crescents, gleaming ovoids, and rough-hewn blocks that often evoked rather than resembled the things named in their titles, such as Bird in Space or Fish. He put the natural properties of his materials on display, carving directly into wood and stone and polishing metal to high reflectivity. The bases for his sculptures were often built of stacked elements—wood cubes, cylindrical slices, pyramidal blocks, or cruciform stones—becoming an integral component of the work itself and hinting at the possibility of infinite rearrangement, an idea that would prove fertile in future decades.

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VIDEOGAMES: Design/ Play/ Disrupt

September 8, 2018 – February 24, 2019, at
The Victoria and Albert Museum

The show will open in the Fall of 2018 and will examine the most diverse and eclectic manifestations of gaming, including indie productions, eSports, and politics. The stated goal is to fully and deeply explore the social, cultural, and artistic impact of games. It is a relief to hear that the exhibition won't follow a chronological order, opting instead for a thematic display of artworks. Artifacts will cover a twenty year period (2000-2018).

Organized into three sections - hence the subtitle, Design, Play and Disrupt - the exhibition will cover aspects related to the production of innovative original narratives like The Last of Us and Journey, the ascent of bedroom and indie coding, the new DIY arcade scene (represented, for instance by Robin Baumgarten's Arcade Backpack), and the typologies of game spaces.

It will also juxtapose traditional/modern art with modern interpretations, for instance Rene Magritte’s 1965 painting La Blanc Seing will be shown beside a section of the 2013 Cardboard Computer's game Kentucky Route Zero, which it inspired. There will be also interactive installations of spectacle and performance.

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BEAUTIFUL BOULEVARDIERS BOARDS ON PINTEREST:

MUSINGS FROM OUR PUBLISHER… KIM STEELE:

The Getty Center

J. Paul Getty’s first museum was on the shores of the Pacific Palisades in the 1970's, at his home, which he acquired in the f1950's, now called The Getty Villa. I first visited it in the seventies, driving up the steep driveway in my VW bug, and walking through the Italianate structure with a mishmash of stuff. Upon his death, the Trust took on a new venture, the purchase of swath of over one hundred acres above the Santa Monica Hills. Getty hired the then reigning architect, Richard Meier, to deign the modernist structure. After an alleged one billion dollar expenditure, it opened to the public in 1997. Rumor has it that the endowment, estimated at $3.2 billion, is larger than all the other museums in the world combined. Hence the power to Acquire Everything! My interest is in the photographic collection.

This publisher’s recent visit to the Center brought nostalgia to mind. Upon my first viewings in the 1990's, I complained that the buildings interfered with the collection, and it’s ostentatious design distracted from the appreciation of the extensive collection. Separate buildings stood like soldiers to be saluted. I have admire Meier’s work at a distance, from the High Art Museum in Atlanta to his homes. But on this visit, I feel it is wearing very well; the travertine structure is warm and inviting, and aging with a lovely patina after twenty years. The public space with the columns and luscious gardens invite the public (free admission) to enjoy the complex and the surrounding spectacular view. Hear-hear to money well spent!

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Degas, Impressionism, and the Paris Millinery Trade

A recent Flaneur sighting in San Francisco! This fetching show featured 40 Impressionist paintings and pastels, including key works by Degas—many never before exhibited in the United States—as well as those by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Édouard Manet, Mary Cassatt, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and 40 exquisite examples of period hats.

Best known for his depictions of Parisian dancers and laundresses, Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) was enthralled with another aspect of life in the French capital—high-fashion hats and the women who created them. The artist, invariably well-dressed and behatted himself, “dared to go into ecstasies in front of the milliners’ shops,” Paul Gauguin wrote of his lifelong friend.

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Faire du Lèche-Vitrines

We have celebrated The Boulevardiers raison de’tre for five years now, founded on the French pre-occupation of strolling and window gazing in Paris, and London, and Rome. This Publisher was struck by a newly found term, "Faire du Lèche-Vitrines," which is crudely translated as “window licking.” Now knowing the decorum of the French, I am convinced that they would not apply this term to their promenading in the trendy section, the Marais, of Paris, which is the center of all that is cool, hip and expensive. The original center of Paris, built in the 13th century by the Knights Templar, much has remained, avoiding destruction by City decree in 1964. The Boulevardiers strolled through this section last summer on the way to L’Orangrie and gazed covetously at the many shops, bakeries and patisseries... and could very well appreciate this phrase.

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The Flâneuse

Guest Musing from The Boulevardiers "Muse" Sally Steele:

Never let it be said that the Boulevardiers don't celebrate all who wander in search of inspiration, or in daily observation. A recently published book, The Flâneuse, is a lively tome focusing on the French flâneuse, the feminine of flâneur: defined as a woman who is or who behaves like a flaneur; who is defined as an idle man-about-town.

Author Lauren Elkin: "The portraits I paint here attest that the flâneuse is not merely a female flâneur, but a figure to be reckoned with, and inspired by, all on her own…She is a determined, resourceful individual keenly attuned to the creative potential of the city, and the liberating possibilities of a good walk."

For some time, I have been lamenting whilst walking my town, enviously observing the abundance of hipster bistros and coffee bars populated all day and into the evening by those lucky enough to grab the time to simply sit and watch the world go by. But how oh so boring that would be!

Recently perusing the tales of Diego, the sire of Galapagos tortoises, I smiled having "met" Diego in the Galapagos several years ago. And when reading about the rich arts scene in Milan, funded mostly via the largesse of the fashion houses, my head was full of images of days spent wandering there, not so long ago. As I poured over my travel photos I saw Los Angeles, Lima, and Santiago; New York, Maui and Athens; Venice, Istanbul, and Marseilles; Cannes, Sydney, and Tokyo, and so many more. I walked for miles in for London, from my favorite museum, The V&A, to Harrod's, to the trendy parts of town with all the big name galleries. Ditto for New York. And Rome, major renovations to ancient and Renaissance sites currently underway, again due to the largesse of the world's fashion leaders. And oh, Paris, strolling in the Tuileries in the drizzle after a glorious morning spent at l'Orangerie. Then there were some standout strolls on La Croisette amidst the excitement of the awards season. I live a fanciful life!

I'm lucky enough to be partner to the ultimate flâneur, who has so graciously guided me into becoming a full-fledged flâneuse.

Here's to women everywhere, and to living a life that takes the good walk, and turns it into the truly great walk.

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Closure of the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York

More reflective of how important this closing was than the claim that, ‘the owners let it go,’ were the results of the auction this week of items from the restaurant. The items went off the hook pricewise. The sign alone, estimated at $5-7,000 sold for $96,000! The ashtrays went for $10,000! (A fifteen-hour marathon auction!) This enthusiasm for artifacts, not only harkens back to the MAD MEN ERA, but also revered to very recently, indicates the longing for a place where the elite and the common folk, albeit New Yorker’s of means, can mingle and gawk at one another in a gorgeous setting. I had my last martini there, last fall.

This Publisher had the fortunate experience to eat there a few times, both with Time Inc. Editors, and with my parents. My Dad exclaimed…"$6.00 for carrots!" once in the POOL ROOM. I did not give it a second thought. I always coveted the chain ball curtains that lined the Grill Room windows to the outside. I intended for years to install them in my home, and even tried to source them at one point unsuccessfully. But the spirit of the restaurant was unique. There was the mention in the Metropolitan Section of the New York Times, of a conversation overheard by the Maître D' on the phone when asked to forward a message to a patron at the bar who was Indian. He inquired, Dot or Feather?

Everything about the place bespoke of power and success. The NY times recently published the seating chart of the patrons. A veritable who’s who of the publishing and financial world of the US. It did shift occasionally over the years since its opening in 1959, from various power brokers and intuitions. A number of the items were reserved for the Metropolitan Museum’s collection. This included the mid-night blue sofas designed by Philip Johnson. Martha Stewart was in attendance. She blurted out that she wished the nickel wine coasters, designed by the infamous architectural critic, Louie Huxtable, to be used at her ‘next’ wedding. A notable Saarinen Tulip table went for $36,000!

There has always been this murky history to the restaurant’s design. The renowned Mies van der Rohe designed the Seagram’s Building for the liquor magnate family, Bronfman. At that time, Philip Johnson was his assistant. Johnson claimed later to be a partner in design which has been disputed, but he was definitely involved in the design of the Four Seasons, which came a few years later.

Mr. Niccolini, the restaurant owner, who used salty language to refer to the building owner, ended the auction carrying a platter of pink cotton candy, a signature desert for the eatery, across the Pool Room upon which various patrons pulled off sections. A patron who flew up from Charleston to pick up ‘whatever’ she could proclaimed, “A place like this won’t happen again!"

Source: The New York Times

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On Architecture

Italian Fascism finally dies…with the recent death of supporter Licio Gelli. I must say I have a weakness for Fascist architecture. Visiting the Valle de los Caídos ("Valley of the Fallen"), a Catholic basilica and a monumental memorial to the dictator Francisco Franco of Spain shot chills of fear and admiration through my veins. Talk about “reductivism” at its purist, even the most libertarian minded person gasps at this monument. The scoundrel was convicted numerous times for bank fraud and embezzlement but never did hard time, due to his “health” but managed lived till 96 years of age. He personified the glorious phrase only Italians could invent, “dietrologia” which means that the widely held suspicion that behind official government narrative lurks a more sinister explanation.

His political and financial shenanigans set the bar for the unbridled greed that we see on Wall Street today.

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Flanerie Season

The raking light of fall brings out the Flaneur in me, the season of Flanerie. Elaine Sciolino reminds us of the first establishment of this pastime in literature, “Tableau de Paris,” a twelve volume set of observations the gestalt the of ‘street’ in Paris. Half a century later, this sites’ figurehead, Charles Baudelaire, demarked the ‘wander-spectator’ activity as flaneur. “The crowd is his habitat, as is air for the bird or water for the fish” he quoted.

This activity is so important to the French, that Hermes created a pop-up museum on the left bank to honor its significance. The artistic director of the project, Pierre-Alexis Dumas also created an illustrated book on the subject. It’s a small single room structure with four window displays, including from the collection of a past president, Emile Hermes.

To observe yes, to interact no. The sounds, the smells and the visual jewels glistening in the shop windows- draws us to the streets of Paris, or London or our favorite ville, Roma. And of course, the most animated of them all – the people who stroll and sit and observe in the cafes, not the harried New Yorkers who are irritated by strollers in their path. Years ago, I proposed a story for Life Magazine, on the important promenades of the world, but to no avail. Sadly, it is not an American occupation.

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Frank Zachary, Editor and Art Director, A Rich Life

Whether I imagined it as a child or I actually saw the magazine HOLIDAY, I knew it was a gem of graphic design and photography. I knew Slims Aarons was a rock star, even when I was a young photographer. Though I was more interested in ‘real’ journalism, I admired the veneer he lay over celebrities and glamour, locales-who did not want to be there? A few art directors changed the face of magazines - the “golden age of magazines”: Alex Brodovitch, Frank Zachary and Roger Black. They produced a short-lived magazine, Portfolio in 1949, regarded as the “definitive graphic magazine” by The New York Times. Zachary died at age 101 yesterday in East Hampton, NY.

Brodovitch changed the thinking on typography, especially for Harper’s Bazaar, that I subscribed to for years just to see his work (overlaying type); Zachary changed the importance of photography in magazines. The weeklies were in full bloom in the 1960's & 70's, Saturday Evening Post, Life, Look, Town and Country and Esquire were employing photographers and giving them extravagant exposure. Zachary assigned the greats: Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa and Arnold Newman.

Born to a Croatian immigrant parents (1914), named Frank Zaharija, his father a steel worker in Pittsburgh, Zachary never attended college, he climbed his way up through hard work. He art directed at Holiday (1951-1964) including being managing editor, Town and Country, Modern Photography to which I subscribed as a child, Travel and Leisure.

I think his brilliance is best described by a friend, Owen Edwards, “Like any good anthropologist, he studied this particular tribe, figured out what most interested them and their habits, and found writers [including Faulkner] and photographers who could show their world in the most entertaining way.”

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Robert Capa, Magnum photojournalist, 1913 - 1954

Publisher’s Musings: Dateline Saigon ~ January 26, 2015

As publisher, I have vowed not to include politics. But after visiting the War Remnants Museum here, which brought tears to my eyes, I think my renewal of the power of photography urged me to reflect on this exhibition, which covers the second floor, of heart wrenching imagery. In an era that has eroded the value of images with self-indulging selfies, seeing photos by some of my heroes, Larry Burrows, Robert Capa and Phillip Jones Griffith (whom I met) rocked me to the core. Burrows and Capa died here. Visitors seemed unable to focus on them.

Life Magazine is well represented here with large reproductions. As an Air Force cadet, I was frightened by what I saw. The images contributed to my request for a Conscientious Objector status. It was considered the first ‘live’ coverage of a war. I remember clearly one issue with tiny pictures of the 58,000 men who died. Both the imagery of the devastation of incursions wreaked on the Vietnamese and the impact the war had on the shooters, it was the darkest period of U.S. history. In the name of stopping Communism, our inexcusable use of Agent Orange is illustrated in the museum in unfathomable images. It is the power of this photography that is widely considered to be what initiated President Johnson’s withdrawal from the war. Despite the pain, it was life-affirming to see the power of photography!

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This is Picasso's umpteenth fifteen minutes of fame:
His renovated mansion in Paris, Musée Picasso Paris, has just re-opened after an exorbitant five year renovation, ribbon cut by François Hollande himself, but under the dark shadow of the Cultural minister, Korean-born Fleur Pellerin, who declared she has not ‘read’ a book in years and could not name a book of the recently awarded Nobel Prize winner for Literature, Patrick Modiano, France’s fifteenth in the category.

Back on home turf, there are two private gallery showings of his work that rival any museum exhibitions, in fact many of the pieces were loaned from museums. They almost seem to challenge one another, since they are both top tier galleries, The Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea and Pace Gallery, both in New York. The Gagosian is a photograph-based exhibition, titled "Picasso & the camera" curated by an old friend of his, John Richardson, designed by a Las Vegas show designer David Korens. There are many images of his various mistresses, s well as films. Despite his reputation as a misogynist, the museum’s president, Anne Baldassari, denies this but claims he only had difficulty maintaining relationships. I saw the MoMa exhibition in the 1990's of his with a room dedicated to his various wives and mistresses and the progressive horrification of their faces as he lost interest in them. Quite revealing. The Pace exhibition focuses in a different direction. On his enduring relationship with his last wife Jacqueline Roque, until his death, with tender imagery and a loving hand.

As an artist, I cannot help but to admire his vitality and fecundity. I read a memoir of life in the South of France, especially the summer jaunts to the country with the likes of Francoise Gilot. To top off the adoration, the exhibition at the Met of Lauder’s Cubist collection (Interesting Openings below) features many of his paintings from that period.

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On every trip to NY, I visit one of my favorite urban spaces, The Grand Central Oyster Bar. Between my passion for oysters and my adoration for Guastavino's tile craft, this is my ideal spot. We traveled to 103rd Street this last trip to enjoy a beautifully illustrated and informative exhibition at The Museum of New York, of his sumptuous tilework throughout New York employed by McKim, Mead and White, and NY City (including the recently uncovered bottom to the Queensborough Bridge, now a Farmer's Market).

Guastavino tile is the "Tile Arch System" patented in the United States in 1885 by Valencian (Spanish) architect and builder Rafael Guastavino (1842–1908). Guastavino vaulting is a technique for constructing robust, self-supporting arches and architectural vaults using interlocking terracotta tiles and layers of mortar to form a thin skin, with the tiles following the curve of the roof as opposed to horizontally (corbelling), or perpendicular to the curve (as in Roman vaulting). This is known as timbrel vaulting, because of supposed likeness to the skin of a timbrel or tambourine. It is also called "Catalan vaulting" and "compression-only thin-tile vaulting".

Guastavino tile is found in some of New York’s most prominent Beaux-Arts landmarks and in major buildings across the United States.

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CREATURE FEATURE

The 166-million-year-old extinct squid relative Belemnoteuthis antiquus had a large, internal shell that likely made it slower than its modern-day, shell-less relations.

Credit: Courtesy of Jonathan Jackson and Zoë Hughes/NHMUK

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences:
The ancestors of octopuses and squid once sported hard shells, but when did they lose their "mobile homes" and become agile, soft-bodied swimmers? A new study finds that this change may have occurred during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

Squishy creatures like squid and octopuses rarely leave behind well-preserved fossils. That has left scientists perplexed over when in the creatures' evolutionary history these cephalopods lost their shells. Researchers have now used a mix of fossil and genetic models to solve the puzzle.

The reason? The loss of shells made the ancient relatives of the modern-day octopus, squid and cuttlefish nimbler, a feature that likely helped these animals catch prey and evade predators, Vinther said.

The heavy shells led to the demise of many cephalopod ancestors, because they couldn't "keep up with the 'new [shell-less] kids on the block,'" Vinther told Live Science.

The researchers made the discovery using a molecular clock technique, which helped them determine when different cephalopod branches sprouted on the family tree.